It's radioactive, and it's missing

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

Harwell Atomic Energy Center

LONDON -- Britain's intelligence service MI5 has launched a high priority search for more than 1,000 pieces of missing radioactive medical equipment used in the treatment of cancers and other illnesses in British hospitals, says a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The loss was discovered after Britain's understaffed National Health Service hospitals made their quarterly inventory returns to the government Environmental Agency -- responsible for the safety of all medical radioactive materials.

In all, some 10,000 items -- mostly used in nuclear medicine -- were accounted for. Those past their use-by date were destroyed at one of Britain's nuclear reactors.

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But the missing 1,000, all of which the last inventory check show contained radioactive material, remain unaccounted for.

"So far nine items are definitely believed to have been stolen or lost. But theft is the most likely reason. While each item contains relatively small amounts of radioactive material, those nine items alone could create a dirty bomb," said an MI5 source.

Osama bin Laden has repeatedly said his prime ambition is to launch any form of nuclear attack against the West.

The loss of the items has been reinforced by a U.S. State Department intelligence report about fears that terror suspects could be working in the NHS.

A State Department counter-espionage officer in London, who works closely with MI5, confirmed there is "concern about the large numbers of foreign born workers in British and European hospitals with access to materials which could be made into a dirty bomb."

At least one of Europe's criminal families, the Rising Sun, based in Minsk, Belarus, has made it clear it will pay "market value" for radioactive material.

Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

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